Page 31 - Sphere No.22 (Aug 2008)

SPHERE 29
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Why chefs are warming to induction cooking
By Robin Lynam
ROGER YUEN got a major shock when he took over as Ex-
ecutive Chef-Western at the Harbour Plaza North Point Hotel.
He discovered he was to take over a flameless kitchen. “I had
already been a professional chef for 20 years by then and had
always used gas,” he recalls. “It took me one or two weeks to get
used to it, but after that there was no looking back”.
Although all-electric kitchens featuring induction cookers
are now popular in private homes, professional kitchen opera-
tors are only just beginning to recognise the potential of the
technology. The Harbour Plaza North Point is a pioneer in
this respect, and has used induction and conventional electric
equipment exclusively in the kitchen for its international res-
taurant, Green’s, for five years.
There are also two induction wok stations in the kitchen for
its acclaimed Chinese restaurant, Hoi Yat Heen, which serves
Cantonese, Sichuan and Shanghainese specialities.
“Because Green’s serves Asian and Western food we have two
wok stations, four electric ovens, and eight induction heads. It’s saf-
er, it’s cleaner and it’s much less noisy, so communication is much
better. The equipment is strongly built and very reliable. Further-
more, using induction equipment saves around one quarter of the
total cost of cooking with gas,” says Chef Yuen emphatically.
He concedes that it took time to get used to cooking with-
out a naked flame, but says that the cooking techniques he uses
have required little or no modification, and that the quality of
the dishes remains exactly the same.
Green’s cuisine reflects Chef Yuen’s wide-ranging kitchen ex-
perience gained over more than two decades. Born and raised
in Hong Kong, his first love, naturally, was Cantonese cuisine,
but he has learned the disciplines of the major Western styles
and also spent a year and a half in Bangkok immersing him-
self in the art of preparing Thai food. He is renowned for his
Hainanese Chicken Rice and Veal Chop with Strawberry Sauce
– recipes perfected over an open flame and now executed,
otherwise identically, over an induction head.
AT IS ON